Christmas Daybook, 4: The House of Christmas
My Christmas daybook for these 12 days of celebrating. We'll be spending Christmastide with the good, old theologian/British mystery writer/ Christmas elf, G.K. Chesterton. Join us, won't you? (see all Christmas daybook 2016-17 posts here)
classic time photo essay focusing on a heroic South Carolina nurse and midwife named Maude Callen. 1951. (Source)
“THERE FARED a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.
This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.”
Listen: Away In A Manger by The Lower Lights
Today's Readings: Psalm 148, Isaiah 49:13-23, Matthew 18:1-14
Prayer for the Day:
“God, you spoke and your Word became flesh, breathing a new song of joy and praise into the world. Grant that we may bear the good news of your salvation, proclaiming your promise of peace to the ends of the earth. Amen”